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Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (Disneyland Park)
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is an indoor/outdoor mine train roller coaster located at Disneyland Park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It was designed by Imagineer Tony Baxter and ride design engineer Bill Watkins. Originally designed as part of an expansion to Frontierland in Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida called "Western River Expedition," the attraction went through several delays before it was finally constructed, but it was decided to have the attraction built first at Disneyland. It opened on September 2, 1979 in Disneyland's Frontierland. Story Gold was first discovered on Big Thunder Mountain in the 1850s, the early years of America's Gold Rush, and the Big Thunder Mining Company was founded to dig the treasures out of the mountain's rocky interior with the town of Big Thunder springing up nearby. However, according to legend, a supernatural force inhabits the mountain, and soon the miners noticed eerie happenings such as ghostly sounds, cave-ins, and equipment suddenly malfunctioning. The trains designed to haul the gold across the wilderness started taking off and racing through the mountain with no one operating the engine. Word soon got out the area was haunted, and Big Thunder became another stereotypical ghost town of the wild west. Years later, once the eyewitness accounts had faded into the local folklore, prospectors resurrected the company and began blowing holes in the mountainside again. They would soon discover, though, that some legends are true. History Designed by Imagineer Tony Baxter and ride design engineer Bill Watkins, the concept for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad came from Baxter's work on Imagineer Marc Davis's concept for the Western River Expedition in Magic Kingdom. The original expansion's plans looked like an enormous plateau that was to contain several rides, one of which would have been a mine train roller coaster. The concept as a whole was deemed too expensive, though, in light of the 1973 construction and the opening of the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. Baxter then suggested going ahead with the mine train as its own attraction, separate from the rest of the axed expansion. While the design of the Walt Disney World version of this roller coaster was done first, Disneyland's version of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was the first one built, as there was a greater desire in California to use the concept as a replacement for the aging Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland attraction, which would close in 1977 in preparation for Big Thunder. The track layout was mirrored, placing the attraction to the right of Rivers of America, if viewed from the central hub. (In Walt Disney World, the attraction is located to the left of Rivers of America.) As the Disneyland installation of Big Thunder Mountain would be adjacent to Fantasyland, it was decided to redesign the attraction's geology, swapping out the vibrant Monument Valley inspired rockwork planned for the Magic Kingdom, for the faded hoodoos of Utah's Bryce Canyon, which Tony Baxter believed had a "Big Rock Candy Mountain" quality to them. Big Thunder Mountain would also play into Tony Baxter's own ambitious, but unbuilt, themed land concept known as Discovery Bay. Proposed to take up the rest of the former Nature's Wonderland space, Discovery Bay would be a Victorian Science Fiction inspired area set in a late 1800s northern California seaport. The story of Discovery Bay surrounded Jason Chandler, an inventor who devised a giant drilling machine to safely mine Big Thunder Mountain. However, his invention was mocked by his peers until he managed to use the drill to rescue miners trapped by one of Big Thunder's earthquakes, before he and his machine were lost. He managed to survive the incident and use the gold he was able to save to build a place where inventors like him could work to make a better world. However, the themed land would be cancelled by its central attraction being based on the flop The Island at the Top of the World, though recent thematic additions to Big Thunder have referenced Jason Chandler. Summary Upon entering the attraction, the queue winds through a narrow rock wall and passing by the tracks. The surrounding walls were originally created from 100 tons of gold ore from Rosamond. Within this half of the queue, a series of Wild West themed features including buildings alongside the track representing Rainbow Ridge and a water cranking machine. The town is the original location of the boarding area of the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland. The queue goes up some stairs in a wooden shack and reaches the area where the riders board the trains. Leaving the outdoor loading station, riders enter a dark tunnel. Animatronics of bats can be seen and heard as the trains make a right-hand turn and then a left-hand turn before climbing the first lift hill. To the left of the track is a series of rainbow-colored caverns. These are also placed as a tribute to the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland. At the top, the trains exit into the daylight and slow at the top until the rest of the train catches up, before making a 180-degree turn drop to the right. The track levels out into the left-hand turn, before making a small drop and climb, providing air time, and then makes another right-hand turn (passing under a tree with several opossums hanging from it). The trains then drop down into a cave (where two coyotes are howling on top of), rise up, hit a block brake, make a right-hand turn, exit the tunnel, and start the climb up the second lift hill. Warnings of blasting up ahead on the track can be seen by guests as the trains crest the second lift hill. Three desert tortoises and two rattlesnakes can also be seen alongside the lift hill. As the trains go slow and start to drop away to the right, an audio-animatronic goat with a stick of dynamite in its mouth bleats at the passing guests. After descending this drop, the trains rise up into a 540-degree clockwise helix, before passing over another hill. There is a slight left dogleg at the crest before the train makes another drop, then makes a left-hand turn into a tunnel and begins the climb up the third lift hill. There are a lot of glowing lanterns around the base of the lift hill, one of which has broken. The resulting fire ignites dynamite fuses that reach their destinations, which then cause explosions in the tunnel, as the train reaches the top of the hill, one final detonation explodes in the riders' direction. Just as it does, the train picks up speed and exits the tunnel. The track crests a small rise, then drops away to the right into a short straightaway. The ride then makes another right-hand turn through a short tunnel onto a trim brake bridge. After this bridge, riders drop away to the left, passing through the ribcage of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton and splashing through Dinosaur Gap and geysers, then rise up to the right, past 4 signs depicting how far away each Big Thunder Mountain attraction is from the point, with Tokyo and Paris being measured in kilometers (km), into the final brake run. The trains pass by the buildings of Rainbow Ridge before returning to the station. This is the only version of the ride to have an outdoor station. All other versions of the ride have indoor stations. On January 7, 2013, Disneyland closed the ride for an extensive refurbishment that included a new track, trains, scenery, and new ending featuring special effects such as projection mapping and smoke effects. The attraction reopened on March 17, 2014. The new track was fabricated by Dynamic Structures, the company that had previously rehauled the coaster track in Space Mountain. Gallery Big Thunder Moutain Railroad.jpg BigThunder.jpg Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Disneyland.jpg Sources *''Birnbaum's Disneyland Resort 2003: Expert Advice from the Inside Source'' Category:Attractions in Disneyland Park Category:Attractions with original themes Category:Indoor attractions Category:Mountain attractions Category:Outdoor attractions Category:Roller coasters Category:Train attractions Category:Western-themed attractions Category:Outdoor Rides Category:Frontierland